Webinar Replay — The Ownership Mindset: How to Bounce Back from Anything
Well, hello, everyone. I'm Rachel Sampson, the National Director of Key for Women and Head of Community Banking here at KeyBank. And I want to welcome you to our program today.
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I'm excited to share who I have with us today, Carrie Siggins.
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Carrie's the CEO and president of Stone Age Inc.
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As President and CEO, Terry is a visionary leader who has not only excelled in the manufacturing and technology sectors.
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but has also championed the importance of thinking
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And personal responsibility and leadership.
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her journey through various challenges, both personal and professional, which we'll dive in today, serves as an inspiring testament to resilience and the power of embracing our flaws.
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Carrie will share her insights on transforming our approach to leadership
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Which is invaluable regardless of the role that you play within your organization.
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We will explore how embracing our vulnerabilities can lead to deeper connections and greater success
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while addressing the ever-present issue of imposter syndrome.
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As we delve deeper into the conversation, I encourage all of you, please think about your own leadership experiences and how we can
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actionably apply insights to your own journey.
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Please, let's engage, ask questions, share where you're from, who you are, what company you're with, with the chat, so that we can connect and engage with each other throughout today's program as we take away practical strategies to enhance our leadership skills.
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So with that, Carrie, thank you so much for being with us today. Please take it away.
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Thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be here.
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So I was named CEO at the age of 30 and I'm often asked.
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How did you get named CEO at the age of 30, especially in a very male dominated industry, Stone Age manufacturers, industrial cleaning equipment, water jetting equipment, basically high-tech squirt guns on steroids used to clean
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all the dirtiest of applications in the world, like refineries and chemical plants and food processing plants. And here at the age of 30,
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I'm named CEO. And it actually starts with me hitting rock bottom.
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On Labor Day of 2006,
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I found myself on the floor of my apartment
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overdosing from a cocktail of illicit substances.
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I had developed substance abuse issues throughout my 20s due to a multitude of reasons, which I've spent a lot of time in coaching and therapy, figuring out. And what it comes down to is a combination of childhood trauma. My dad left when I was very young and he
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was in and out of my life and was very hard on me and
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And that caused me to have imposter syndrome because I didn't think that I was lovable as is. He would tell me things like, you're not smart enough to go to engineering school. Why are you going to engineering school when I decided I wanted to go to Colorado School of Mines after I graduated? Or he would tell me things like, that's a stupid decision. Why are you so stupid or
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Don't eat that Twinkie. That's just going to make you fatter than you already are. And so
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I spent my whole life thinking that I had to be somebody who I wasn't
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to be loved. That combined with a very ambitious, driven personality, one that likes to take risks and being pretty miserable in my 20s at work.
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led to a very toxic combination and I used substances to cope.
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And I wasn't taking ownership of my life. I was actually really blaming everybody else. I was blaming
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my dad for being so unhappy as weighing my friends for my partying issues. I was blaming
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my boss for being miserable at work and
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That is what caused me to hit rock bottom.
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Because I was just constantly looking to escape my life. And I did that with drugs and alcohol.
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And on Labor Day of 2006, after a long weekend of being out with my friends and not getting any sleep, my body just
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had enough and had enough
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I remember…
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I think I remember falling to the floor. You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about this day.
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But I do remember waking up and I woke up with a shock.
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I was on the floor of my apartment. My heart was racing, but my breathing was incredibly slow. And I knew immediately what was happening.
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But I was too ashamed to call anyone for help.
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There was no way I was going to let anyone see me like this. I was high functioning.
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Even though I had substance abuse issues, I was still driven and I always had the motto of if you party hard, it doesn't matter, you work hard. And I was very driven to succeed. And so I realized that I had been living this sham life of
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of trying to portray the successful exterior where really inside I was
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so miserable. I was so hurting. And quite frankly, I hated myself.
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And so instead of calling anyone for help, I said, if you're going to die, you are not going to die on the floor of your apartment. You're going to at least die in bed. And so I pulled myself up and I got into bed and I laid there for three days.
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And rock bottom for me wasn't almost dying. Rock bottom for me was the fact that I couldn't go to work for three days.
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And the fact that even though I had a thousand friends, I was living in Austin, Texas at the time, and knew everybody. No one called to check on me. I think everybody just assumed that I was at work and they'd see me on the weekend.
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And I realized that I was just living this false life, that I was not successful. In fact, I was miserable.
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And I had to make the choice, am I going to live or am I going to die?
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And even though I was laying there.
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filled with self-hatred.
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So ashamed of myself
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I had this little glimmer of hope. Like I knew that I had something in me that I was supposed to do something
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big with my life.
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And that is what caused me to call my mom and tell her everything.
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So I was 27 years old at the time. And I called my mom and I asked her if I could
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come back and live with her in Durango, Colorado.
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And she said to me, yes, of course. And then she gave me the toughest
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words that she's ever shared, at least that I can remember. And that is.
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Carrie, you have so much potential and you were blowing it.
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And I don't know why you make the choices that you make. I hear you blame other people. And if you want to live the life that you
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dream about the life that you talk about, you have to start taking responsibility for your actions. You are where you are because of the choices you made. This is not anybody else's fault.
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And if you want to lead others, you have to learn how to lead yourself first.
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And this was the first time I had heard of self-leadership and
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It's true. Like, I mean, we lead ourselves every day, right? Whether we're doing it well or whether we're doing it poorly, but I had never thought about how am I leading myself
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And so this was really tough, tough feedback for me to hear from my mom, but I realized that
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the decisions I was making, the mindset that I had, this victim mentality that it was getting me nowhere. In fact, it was getting me worse than nowhere.
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driving me into the ground.
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And so that was my decision, my journey to saying, that's it. I have to start taking responsibility
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For every single thing that happens in my life. If I want to be the kind of person that I know that I can be, I need to understand myself. I need to figure out why I'm making these decisions and how to start empowering myself to be the person I want to be
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Rather than disempowering myself by blaming other people. I needed to be resilient.
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And I was resilient as a little girl. I was tough. I mean, I learned this from my mom. My mom is a single mother, raised two kids.
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In rural Colorado, 15 miles outside of town, she put herself through college when I was a preteen, driving back and forth between Montrose, Colorado and Gunnison, Colorado, which is like brutal weather in the winter.
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putting herself through school, like I had these role models that showed me what resiliency was, what being tough was and
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And I had lost
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my way. So six weeks after my overdose, I had packed up everything in Austin, Texas, and I drove a thousand miles to Durango, Colorado, wondering what am I doing with my life? I had no job.
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I had completely lived beyond my means. I had $100,000 worth of debt between
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car I couldn't afford, apartment I couldn't afford, partying too much, buying too many clothes.
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student loans, all of it had just put this huge weight of debt on me.
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And here I'm driving to this small town in rural Colorado where, you know, do people even get jobs there? Good jobs? It's a service.
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It's a ski town. What am I going to do when I get here?
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But I knew in my heart I needed to go home. I needed to go back to my roots of Colorado. In Colorado. I knew I needed to be with my mom.
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So I could figure out how to turn my life around.
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When I got to Durango, the first thing I did was crush my dirt bike and break my leg or break my foot and dislocate my shoulder.
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And it really gave me a chance to slow down. And I had no idea how to slow down. I had just been pushing myself so hard
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to achieve, to prove that I was successful. And then I was wreaking havoc on my body because of my substance abuse issues.
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I didn't know how to slow down. And here as I go tumbling off of a dirt bike with my mom behind me watching me. It was just proof that the universe was telling me that I had to slow down.
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And when my mother came up to me after, you know, she was following me and I'm on the ground.
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And this far away from being impaled by a dead tree branch that was on the ground and she
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turned me over and she was like, are you like, why are you trying to kill yourself? What are you doing?
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It was just like this perfect like accumulation of just how out of control my life
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was. And so I decided that's it. Like I need to figure out how to slow down and I need to understand myself and I need to get a job.
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So I decided to do two things. One, I didn't have any money to go to therapy, which is what I needed. And I was refused to go to rehab. And a friend of me was telling me about personality assessments as I was lamenting about
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why I was making the decisions that I made and I didn't really know who I was. And he said, well, you know, you could do like the Myers-Briggs personality test. I think they're free online. Like maybe that will help. And so I had never heard of personality assessments. So I go look Google it and get on and take it. And it was when I read the assessment, it was like, oh my God, this is
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This is so reading about myself. This is a book about me
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And it was the beginning of my journey of self-awareness. And I took every single free assessment that I could to start to try to understand
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who I was and why I was making these decisions.
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At the same time, I was applying for jobs. And that's when I came across Stone Age. And Stone Age was looking for a general manager at the time. I had never run a company before, nor had I actually managed a person, but I had an engineering degree, a business degree. I'd worked in manufacturing when I was in Austin at a huge manufacturing company, Eaton Corporation, significantly bigger than Stone Age at the time. So
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I thought, you know what? I'm going to apply for this job.
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And even if I don't get it, maybe it's my foot in the door for another role in the company. This is really the only manufacturing company in Durango. So I'm going to try for it and see.
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And I got an interview with the founders only because of Colorado School of Mines on my resume. The founders both went to mine, graduated from mines. One was working there when he met the founder. That's where they started the company.
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So I'm really, really grateful that I didn't listen to my dad and that I went to engineering school because there's no way they would have ever decided to interview me because I was so young and lacked
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the experience of actually running a company and
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And I'll never forget as I was meeting with John and Jerry, our founders, and they were asking me.
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Questions about, you know, running a company and
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There was no way that I could BS my way through this. Like I had done so much of my life because I clearly had never done this before. So
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I answered.
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So often, so often
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Well, I've never done that before, but this is how I think about it. This is how I would
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approach it. These are the questions that I would ask.
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And they…
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Even though I was underqualified, they decided that
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I was humbled that I could learn, that I was curious, that I was a good cultural fit, and they ultimately decided to hire me.
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And I started on January 2nd of 2007, literally almost exactly three months
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from my overdose.
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And they did not know this story at the time. I'm really good at faking it till you make it. And I was so incredibly grateful.
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And I had no idea at the time what this opportunity was. I did look at it as an opportunity to
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to start my life over.
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But really what working for Stone Age did was save my life.
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Because I had the opportunity to do what I was really good at. I didn't know what I was good at, but I love leadership and I love strategy and I love disruption and
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pulling all the complex pieces of business together. And I had no idea what that but and here I get this incredibly lucky opportunity to
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to build a company. And it is what I was meant to do. And it allowed me to throw the intensity that I do everything in life with
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Including drugs into figuring out how to be a leader, how to be a leader worth following.
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how to lead myself well and how to build a company.
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And I do not believe that I would be here today
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alive if John and Jerry would not have given me, sorry, I'm going to get emotional. If Don and Jerry wouldn't have given me the
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opportunity to take this role when it was a huge risk. And in fact.
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When my book came out, The Ownership Mindset last year and John Wolgamott read it, at the time was the president when he hired me of the company.
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And he said, you know, Carrie, it was like giving the keys to a Porsche to a 16 year old.
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Like I thought you had a 50 50 shot of making it. And I was thought we were crazy for doing this, but it's proved to be incredibly successful.
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The company was about 8 million in revenue at the time when I took it over and we are almost 100 million now where we've grown completely organically.
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With no outside investors, we have gone through a buyout transition, buying out our founders. We're 100% employee owned. So now
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All of our employees are owners and it has just been this incredibly remarkable journey.
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And as I was preparing for this talk today, I was really thinking about
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you know, reflecting on what those last almost 18 years has been like and how did I
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get to where I am today with the opportunity to speak to all of you and to share this story. And it really comes down to
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resilience. It comes down from being able to bounce back
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from anything in life. It comes down to taking responsibility for everything that happens in my life.
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And that is what the ownership mindset is. And it's why I wrote this book is to inspire
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not just teaching people how to build a company that encourages people to think and act like owner, that inspires people to think and act like owners. But how do you do that yourself? How do you say, I am responsible for every single thing that happens in my life?
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Things don't happen to me. They happen because of me, because I have been able to change my life.
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Because of resiliency, because of perseverance, because of being able to pick myself up off the floor in Austin, Texas
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Wondering if I even wanted to live because I was questioning it at the time.
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Do I want to live or do I just want to succumb to my misery and self-hatred?
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And luckily, thank God I made the decision that I was not going to succumb to it.
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And by being able to pick myself up off of the floor, hitting rock bottom.
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having the courage to pick up my life, having the support system to be able to go back home
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And rebuild my life to turn it into the life of my dreams.
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Never would have happened without
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resiliency without perseverance, without being able to turn obstacles into
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into opportunities, challenges into opportunities for growth.
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And so that's why I want to share with you today are my five tips for building resiliency. And there's lots that are out there, but
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But these are the things that really had profound impact in my life.
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So the first one is the ownership mindset, right? Taking responsibility for everything that happens to you.
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And so I want to share a story that exemplifies this in its essence.
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The hardest piece of feedback that I've ever received was not from my mother. It was from a colleague of mine. It was from my VP of operations and engineering. This was probably, oh gosh.
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eight or nine years ago and
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We were butting heads. He wanted to be COO, eventually CEO.
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He was my right hand person, but he did not have what I thought was the
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What's the word I'm looking for? He did not have the
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temperament to be a CEO following me. Plus, I'm not going anywhere, right? I was like in my thirties at the time, like I'm not going to not be CEO here. So like, why are we having this conversation? And so we were going back and forth and I told him like, I just, I just don't see it wrong. I just don't see that you're going to be the next CEO. Like, and I don't understand why we're having this conversation. And he said, you know what?
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You think that you are this inspiring CEO. You think that you're disruptive and really what you are is erratic and you are incredibly hard to work for.
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And I'm really frustrated and I don't know if I can work here
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And I was completely taken back.
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erratic, really hard to work for. Those are not words that I
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used to describe my leadership. And it took everything in me to hold it together and to not
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yell at him and tell him to get out of my office. But I said, okay, well, that is really hard feet, harsh feedback. And I need to process what you just told me. So
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Why don't we circle back tomorrow when I haven't had time to think about how I want to have the rest of this conversation?
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And so he left and I barely made it to my car before I was in tears. And I went home and I was bawling on the couch and my husband came home and he asked me what happened and I shared the story with him and he had a few choice words for Roland.
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And then he said, look, Carrie, you are the most driven human being I know. And you do push hard and you do have this
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crazy, incredible vision of transforming the industry and creating a thousand millionaires through employee ownership and doing all of these things that are really big.
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And it can be really exhausting.
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But it's also why people love working for you because you have this vision and you are driven. So take the piece of feedback, take the good from this piece of feedback and let the rest go.
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And so I really appreciated that
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that from him. My husband's not great at giving me good advice. Usually it's advice that I don't want to hear. But this was a really great piece. And so I thought about that all night when I wasn't sleeping.
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How can I take the good from this piece of feedback and let the rest go?
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And so I decided to focus on the word erratic because
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I realized that that was what stung the most. I do move really fast. And the reality is, is that I'm 15 steps ahead
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of everyone else because I see this vision. I love to anticipate
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where the industry is going. And I wasn't doing a good job of tying it back to the work that we're doing every single day. And so sometimes my decision making would feel maybe a little bit erratic because I wasn't connecting the dots for everyone about, hey, we're making this decision to invest in this type of technology because this is where the vision is. This is the future.
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And so I decided that that was it. I was going to write out what the future looks like. It's literally a document that says what the future looks like. We still use it today to drive our strategy. And it was my vision of the future.
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And I also realized that I do have this big personality and that maybe my passion could come across in ways that I didn't intend. Maybe it was
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overbearing or even sometimes aggressive. And I decided in that moment that I was always going to be cool, calm, and collected, that I was going to be an unflappable leader and that nobody was ever going to tell me that I was erratic again.
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And so the next day when Roland and I circle back, he comes into my office and I said, you know, I really want to thank you for this feedback. And he said, Carrie, no, I want to apologize first. He was like, I was so angry with you. I just wanted you to tell me that you thought
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that I was good enough to be a CEO.
00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Not that I wanted your job. And when you didn't tell me that it hurt.
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:18.000
And I could so relate to that. Like that was not what my intention was. But when I listened to my dad tell me how I wasn't good enough to be anything either and how that made me feel. And so I could completely relate to how he took
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:21.000
the way I was saying what I was saying.
00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:23.000
And I appreciated that.
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:35.000
And I said, thank you, Roland. I really am grateful for your apology. And I accept it. But I also want you to know that this is the biggest gift that you could have given me.
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:50.000
And I am going to do some changing of my leadership style. So that way I don't, it doesn't feel like I'm chasing shiny objects or that it doesn't feel like it's always difficult or that I'm too amped up about things.
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:59.000
And from that moment on, Cool, Calm, and Collected is my mantra. And it is how I approach everything in life. And it has radically changed my leadership style.
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:06.000
And Roland did eventually leave the company about six months later. We left on good terms. We're still friends. He's doing great things.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:12.000
He is not a CEO, but he loves his life. And it was really good that he left the company because
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:19.000
It allowed me to flourish. It allowed other people to be able to flourish and grow in their roles. And so
00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:24.000
This is how taking responsibility for everything that happens to you
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:30.000
can play out, right? It's hard to hear feedback like that. It's hard to take a deep look at yourself and say, huh.
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:38.000
how can I own a piece of that? What is true in what that person just told me? And how can I be a better person for it?
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.000
That is taking responsibility for everything in your life.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:49.000
The second thing that I want to talk about is building a support system. We all need people in our corners
00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:51.000
to be resilient.
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.000
If I would not have been able to lean on my mother, I would not have been able to bounce back.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:03.000
If I have not been able to lean on my team, I would not be able to bounce back.
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:11.000
In fact, right now, I'm going through a divorce. My husband and I have decided to split up and it is an incredible
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:16.000
incredibly painful thing to go through, even though I want it.
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:19.000
And it's going to be
00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:21.000
one of the toughest things that I've ever
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:31.000
have done. We have a 12 year old son who loves both of us and we love both of him. And we have really tough decisions to make as we're going through this.
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:43.000
And I am so grateful for the support system that I have been able to build that is allowing me to get through this really challenging time because I can lean on them.
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:49.000
I can lean on my mom. I can lean on my girlfriends. I can lean on my team. I just, I'm in.
00:25:49.000 --> 00:26:03.000
my new house, I'm home instead of in my office because my son has the bird flu right now. And this, I moved into this new house this weekend and my team came over and helped me move so that
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:07.000
My husband didn't have to be the one to move me in.
00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:20.000
To be able to have those kinds of relationships and that kind of support system allows you to be strong. Like we are not strong simply on our own. We are strong because of the people we surround ourselves with.
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:37.000
So building that support system is incredibly important and it doesn't have to be a huge support system. It just needs to be a strong one. Those people who you can lean on when you are feeling down, when you feel like you can't do it, because you can do it. You can get through anything.
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:49.000
Even though it might feel like in the moment that it's really big and it's really hard, but when you can lean on somebody to say, I need help or I need to talk or can we just go for a walk or can you help me move?
00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Two or three days later, it's amazing. Like, okay, you know what? I'm better. I can get through this. And two or three months later, you're like, okay, I'm not just getting through this, but I'm doing great. And then two or three years later, you're like, I'm thriving.
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:13.000
And that takes that kind of support system to be able to help you move through these really difficult times that we all face in our lives.
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.000
Never underestimate the power
00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.000
of your support system.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:24.000
The third aspect of resiliency is getting outside your comfort zone.
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:30.000
I know that a lot of people don't like to get outside of their comfort zones. Change is hard. Change brings
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.000
uncertainty and uncertainty brings fear.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:41.000
But look, we do not grow as human beings if we stay in our comfort zones.
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:49.000
We have to grow as human beings. So when we get outside of our comfort zones, we expand our competency zones.
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:57.000
So imagine if I would not have applied for the general manager position at Stone Age back in 2006.
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:09.000
I was completely getting out of my comfort zone to be able to do that, to say, I am not qualified for this position, but I'm going to bet on myself and I'm just going to see what door opens
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:15.000
When I do this and it dramatically changed my life going in and saying
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:21.000
I've never done that before, but this is how I would think about it over and over and over again.
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000
can feel humiliating. It was humiliating. I was like, why am I here? I am so…
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:35.000
not qualified for this position, right? Imposter syndrome was so real in that moment. And it was, I was being an imposter. Like I didn't have the
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:46.000
qualifications and the skill set and experience to do this job. But I got out of my comfort zone and I just said, you know what? A door is going to open because I do this.
00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000
It's the same thing for you.
00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:54.000
The only way to get good at doing hard things is to do hard things.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.000
to push yourself, to grow.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:07.000
And when you get outside of your comfort zone, that is how you gain self-confidence, right? We all talk about confidence and confidence is a requirement of being able to be
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:12.000
resilient. You have to believe in yourself. But things are not going to ever just be handed to you. And when
00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Things are handed to you, it doesn't actually build your confidence, right? We know that as parents, right? When we praise our kids for not doing
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:24.000
much, we're not building their confidence when we teach them how to do things for themselves.
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:30.000
That's how we build our confidence. So getting outside your comfort zone is how you build resiliency.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.000
And you know what? You're gonna suck at doing whatever you're doing, right? We're always not, we're never good at doing something new when we first start.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:57.000
That's okay. Like I'm learning how to play golf right now. I am terrible at golf. I don't like doing sports that I'm not good at, but it's really important to my son. He loves golf. He's a great golfer at 12 years old. And I want to be able to do the things that he loves to do. And so I'm getting outside of my comfort zone and I'm learning how to play golf. And I know that
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Like in a year, I'm going to be a little bit better in a year, a little bit better. And I'm like all golfers, I will never be good, but it's getting outside of that comfort zone so that you can do
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:14.000
things in your life that you did not think that you were capable of doing, that you did not think that you wanted to do, you can.
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000
So don't be afraid to get outside that comfort zone.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.000
The fourth aspect of
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:28.000
being resilient and being able to bounce back from anything is the ability to let things go.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:30.000
Take a deep breath. In fact.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:37.000
Everybody right now, let's just take a deep breath, right?
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:39.000
When we take a deep breath.
00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:47.000
We calm ourselves. We calm our nervous systems. We can become grounded and centered. And that's really important
00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:51.000
for our ability to be able to let things go.
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.000
Baggage does what baggage does.
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:57.000
it weighs you down. It holds you back.
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:00.000
Do not let your baggage hold you back.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.000
How are you dealing
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:09.000
with your past trauma, with your baggage, with your confidence, with things that
00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.000
you don't like in your life.
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:13.000
with relationships that you
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:22.000
that aren't giving you what you need. Are you hanging on to them? Are you figuring out how to be able to let them go? And letting them go doesn't mean
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:26.000
we getting rid of them, right? Letting go means forgiving.
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:35.000
Letting go means making the decision that I'm not going to let the story I'm telling myself impact my life. In
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:38.000
I'm going to tell myself a different story.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:43.000
The only thing that exists is this moment right now.
00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:45.000
We cannot predict the outcome.
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:58.000
of the future. We don't know what is going to happen in the next moment. We spend a lot of time thinking about it, obsessing about it, worrying about it, trying to manifest it, but we don't really know what the outcome is going to be of the decisions that we're making.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:03.000
And we can't change the past. The past is already gone. We're not living in that.
00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:08.000
But what we can do is decide what story we're going to tell ourselves.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:11.000
And we can make that story be anything that we want.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:19.000
I could tell myself a story that my overdose was embarrassing, humiliating, and I'm never going to talk about it.
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:28.000
Or I can say, you know what, it was the inflection point in my life and it is the day that I am most grateful for besides the day I had my son.
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Because it allowed me to change my life and telling my story has allowed me to help thousands and thousands of people believe in themselves
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:45.000
to pick their lives up from whatever their rock bottom looks like and make changes to live a more fulfilling life.
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:47.000
The incident happened.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:53.000
The story that I choose to tell myself is what allows me to be able to move forward. It allows me
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:59.000
to let go of the shame and the guilt and the self-hatred that I had to be able to build
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:02.000
gratitude and resilience and love
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:07.000
for that incident.
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:10.000
you can let things go. You can choose to tell yourself
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.000
Whatever story you want about what happened.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:23.000
And because you get to choose that, choose a story of love, choose a story of gratitude, choose a story of resilience and let it go.
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Do not let your baggage weigh you down.
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Move forward by letting things go.
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:35.000
And then finally, never give up.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000
The story of resilience
00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:42.000
only happens when you persevere, when you say.
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:49.000
This is really tough and I am not going to give up. And giving up doesn't mean that you don't change your mind.
00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:54.000
I have done all kinds of things, set out all kinds of goals that I have realized like, uh-uh.
00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:07.000
This isn't what I want. That's okay. I can change my mind. You know what? This isn't going to work out like the way I thought it was. That's not giving up, right? I still have a vision that I want for my life and I am never going to give up
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:15.000
on what that vision is. And if the route that I take is going to not get me there, then I'm going to be willing to pivot.
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.000
that is not giving up. Giving up means that you say, you know what?
00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:27.000
I'm giving up on myself. This dream that I had, I'm not going to go for it anymore. And that dream that I had, maybe it's going to morph into something else because
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:33.000
I want something different or I realize that that dream was not going to get me
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:44.000
to where I wanted to be, but I'm not giving up on myself. I'm going to keep investing in myself. I'm going to keep growing and keep learning and keep pivoting until I create the life that I want.
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Giving up means believing in the person that you can be.
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:53.000
It doesn't mean that you have to
00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:55.000
stay stuck on
00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:00.000
a certain goal or a certain vision for yourself.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:13.000
That can change as you grow. In fact, as we grow and we mature, it absolutely changes. The things that were important to me 10 years ago are very different than the things that are important to me now. That is called growth, but it's not giving up.
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Giving up is when you say, I'm giving up on myself.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:27.000
Perseverance, resilience, being able to be moldable, flexible, adaptable. That is what resiliency is, but it's never, ever giving up.
00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:39.000
on yourself. I love this quote. I want to read it to you here. It comes from Psychology Today, and it says that resilience is the ineffable quality that allows some people
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000
to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise
00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:51.000
From the ashes.
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:56.000
Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, including a positive attitude.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:01.000
Optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, cool, calm, and collected.
00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:06.000
And the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback.
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:11.000
Even after misfortune, resilient people are blessed with such an outlook
00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:14.000
that they can change course and soldier on.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:20.000
That is the story of my life. And that can be the story of your life too.
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:22.000
You just have to choose it.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:31.000
I really appreciate you all allowing me to share some of my story today. Thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable. There's a lot going on right now.
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And I really, really appreciate KeyBank for the opportunity for today. And hopefully this inspired you to look at how you can be more resilient in your life.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.000
Wow. Thank you, Carrie. That
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.000
Thank you.
00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:54.000
was incredible. Thankfully, you and I have had a couple of opportunities to get to know each other and
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:05.000
you are you all the time, which I love. From the first time we had a meeting, her son did come into the room, as many of us can attest to, like it's time to go golfing, mom. Okay, I got to go.
00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:10.000
And I love that, right? Because in that moment, you're creating space and opportunity to be you and
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Prioritize those things that are most important so
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:16.000
Yeah.
00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:23.000
I just want to say I appreciate your vulnerability. It's so admirable to share some of those hard things.
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:24.000
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:25.000
But also, I love how you talked about the story that we tell ourselves. And that's really where I want to start, because especially
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.000
you know us as a lot of women and those who maybe identify or not
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:37.000
you know, we can be overachievers sometimes, right? We're always looking at what we did wrong so we can fix it.
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:47.000
So how do you balance the two between the story that you tell yourself, but also that continuous improvement mindset as you talked about the strategy, the toughness.
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:49.000
always wanting to make things better.
00:37:49.000 --> 00:38:18.000
Yeah, the story that you tell yourself can't like not be in like based in reality, right? I mean, you can't just say, okay, this completely didn't happen, right? It's still taking the heart of whatever situation that you're in. And it's saying, am I going to choose to
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.000
Lulu.
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:21.000
let this take me down? Or am I going to choose to grow from it? And so I think that is the key, right? I mean, as my son says, like, don't be delulu mom, right? We don't want to be delusional and tell ourselves a completely false story.
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:26.000
That's not what the ownership mindset is. The ownership mindset is really about saying, okay.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.000
This is the situation that's in front of me.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:41.000
Here is how I am responsible for it or for a portion of it. Here's my ownership in this. What story am I going to tell myself so that I can grow and learn and improve and move forward from it?
00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:52.000
That's what the balance is. It's not about pretending something didn't happen, right? Sweeping things under the rug, all that gets you is a lumpy rug and nobody wants a lumpy rug.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:02.000
And so, yeah, so I think that's really the key is that the stories you tell yourself has to still be grounded in the ownership mindset. And that is I can own
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:21.000
I can own a piece of this situation. I can own this situation fully and I can take responsibility and accountability for it. And I can tell myself a story of positivity, resilience, growth, and learning from it.
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Yeah.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.000
I love that. I love that. And to FYI to our audience, and Carrie, please don't kill me. Her son is also sick. So she has managing a company.
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:34.000
moving, going through a divorce. Her son is sick all at the same time. And she is still just here on camera and helping us and being so resilient. And I think it just goes to show just
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000
how incredible you are. So I really appreciate that.
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.000
One thing I want to talk about that you mentioned as well was
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:42.000
You know, when you got into the role
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:52.000
you didn't think that you were qualified. And we hear that a lot, right? Like when women take a look at a job description and we have to have at least 80% of the
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.000
Right.
00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:03.000
experience before we'd even consider applying versus a man says.
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Right.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.000
Not to broad brush because I know it's not everyone, but 20% saying, I can do it, I'll figure it out. I'll learn on the job. It'll be okay. So like.
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000
How did you balance like being
00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:13.000
you know, I'm sure probably some fear in that when you decided to take that leap.
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:29.000
Well, part of it is my personality and I'm a risk taker. So I don't underestimate the power of having a risk-taking personality. I'm also the detriments that it can also bring to your life. But yeah, I…
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:34.000
So here, the honest truth of it is that it was part
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Heart desperation.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:42.000
Parts going, I think I can do that.
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.000
I've done all of this in a much bigger company
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:51.000
And that is what combined me to get over the fear of
00:40:51.000 --> 00:41:00.000
of putting it out there. And when we apply for jobs, like it stings if we never hear back, but you know, the reality is that most of us don't hear back from positions. In fact.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:08.000
Every position that I never heard back from and stressed myself out over. I promised myself when I was a leader, I was never going to do that to anybody.
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:15.000
But I was like, you know, if I might not get a call back, that's okay. But the only way to get a job is to apply for them.
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:32.000
And so, and I was desperate for a job. And so that's how I forced myself to do it. And I did have to force myself to do it because it was really scary. It's not imposter syndrome. Like I wasn't qualified for the position. I was absolutely the right person for the job.
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:44.000
But I did not know that at the time. But that desperation and the risk taking personality, and then just that little like twink inkling in my mind going like, I've done all of these things.
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Maybe I could do this. Like, why not just
00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:53.000
Throw your name in the hat. If you don't hear back, you don't hear back. But for sure, it's a no if you don't apply.
00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:00.000
So that's how I talked myself into doing it.
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:01.000
Yeah.
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:07.000
I love it. What's the worst that can happen? Like you said, I love that. You know, and you mentioned, like you said, about risk taking. Statistically speaking, women generally are not risk takers.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:15.000
But when you couple that with resilience and toughness, as you said, you know, that pendulum could swing sometimes too far.
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:23.000
How do you now self-regulate and how do you know when that pendulum has swung too far where maybe you are so resilient that you are
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:26.000
crossing over to dangerous, stressful territory.
00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Yeah. I mean, you have to pay attention. Like the biggest clue is knowing in your body.
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Understanding what's going on in your body, your body tells you so many things.
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.000
And so that's how I pay attention to it because I absolutely push myself too hard.
00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:53.000
And I have pushed myself too hard to the brink of burnout breakdown.
00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:04.000
I guess three years after my son was born, we tried to have another baby and I miscarried and I had all kinds of health issues because of it. But I was just like, you know what? I don't have time for health issues. And so I'm just going to push through it.
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And that is the hugest mistake. And my body was trying to tell me
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:16.000
You can't do this anymore. But I refuse to listen because I was being too resilient. It was like, I don't have time for this.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.000
And then it shut down. My adrenals went into overload. I had to go into my doctor. I was having all kinds of issues with bleeding and
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000
just really not a good spot. And she was like, your adrenals are completely tapped out.
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:45.000
You cannot do anything but yin yoga for 30 days. Now I am an avid exerciser. I traded one addiction for another. I traded my Coke problem for running ultra marathons. I don't run an ultra marathons anymore, but I was doing that at the time.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:44:01.000
And again, just another coping mechanism that was at least slightly a bit healthier. But I just pushed myself too far. And so I think you just have to really listen to your body. You have to listen to the people around you. Like my husband was trying to tell me, like, you're just doing too much. Like, you know, you need to slow down.
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:14.000
And so my body shut down. And so I think that's the biggest thing is pay attention to what your body's telling you. If you're feeling yourself burning out, if you're losing motivation, if you can't sleep.
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:26.000
If you are fatigued, if you hurt yourself, that is your body telling you that you are trying to be too resilient and that you need to just back off a little bit and be kinder and softer on yourself.
00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Those were not words that were in my vocabulary back then, but they are now like self-love, self-care, taking time off, sitting on laying in bed and reading a book for a couple of hours. That is my jam these days. But because I had that mindset of.
00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:48.000
Always be resilient, always bounce back, always push yourself, always do more.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.000
You run yourself into the ground.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:53.000
Right.
00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:56.000
I can relate there. Absolutely. And yes, taking that time off is so important, you know, especially
00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:00.000
Yeah.
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Yeah.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:06.000
When you do have so many goals and supporting family and loved ones, it can be hard. But I think that's a great place to pause as well for our audience to
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:07.000
Yeah.
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:10.000
Take a deep breath. Thank you, Marie, as well.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.000
body and breath awareness. So we'll take a quick moment to do that and also tell
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:18.000
everyone today, thank you so much for joining. Continue to
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:33.000
drop your questions in the chat. We'll get to as many as possible. But I want to make sure that you have an opportunity. If you are not already a Kiefer Women member, to use the QR code on your screen or go to key.com slash
00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
join cave for W to be a part of our program.
00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:40.000
So with that, Carrie, let's shift gears just a bit.
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:48.000
When we talked about what was interesting is that you talk a lot about an employee
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:49.000
Mm-hmm.
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:58.000
having an ownership mindset, regardless of whatever role you have. But you did something interesting that you talked about in that
00:45:58.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Yeah.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
you transition the business into an ESOP where the employees are now owners. That's a huge step now giving that
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:03.000
you probably have a lot more
00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:05.000
losses than you previously had.
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Tell me about that transition and the courage that it took to go there and how that transition has gone since.
00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Sure. So our founders uh our founders
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:32.000
When the founders hired me, they were in their mid-50s, right? They knew that they wanted to do other things and that they had grown the company too as far as they would be able to take it. But they didn't really weren't thinking about succession in terms of like ownership, ownership.
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:48.000
And we actually had had a stock ownership program prior to becoming an ESOP where employees could buy stock in the company. Our founders are incredible visionaries, incredibly generous men, and they wanted to share in the success of the company. So employees were buying shares of the company.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:55.000
But it wasn't a sustainable model. And in 2013, 14, now they're in their mid
00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:04.000
in their mid-60s, I was like, you know, you guys, I mean, I'd have a hard conversation with them. Like you guys at any time something could happen. And you know, what happens
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:13.000
If one of you dies or both of you dies, who owns this company? The machinist who's been buying stock in the company for the last 20 years
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:20.000
He loves the idea of being an owner, but he doesn't really want the responsibility of owning the company.
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:25.000
And so it was incredibly hard conversation to have with the two of them because
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:31.000
You know, they were comfortable with handing leadership over to me. We'd been doing this for a decade now, but now it's like.
00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:34.000
We have to actually sell our stock.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:41.000
And so it was a lot of really crucial conversations, high stakes conversations of
00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:53.000
of being able to approach them in a way that they could hear me, but also not to offend them when we're saying we need a sustainable ownership plan because you two are getting older and
00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.000
We need to make sure that this company can exist for another 40 years.
00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:15.000
And because we had already created this employee ownership plan where any employee could buy stock in the company, we decided that an ESOP was the next best route for us because it allows all employees to be able to own the company. So an ESOP is an employee stock ownership plan.
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:31.000
It is a qualified retirement plan. It's set up by ERISA and the Department of Labor as a way for founders to be able to sell shares to employees and do it in a really structured way that allows for sustainability and protection of
00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:44.000
the employee owners. There are other lots of, and I love employee ownership. I'm a huge advocate for it. There's lots of other models of it, different ways to approach it. But we wanted a real sustainable structure for us to be able to go forward.
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:51.000
And so over that year, we made the decision that we were going to become an ESOP company and
00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:01.000
And the founder sold some of their shares to the ESOP and along with some of the other employee shareholders. And over eight years, we bought everybody out and we became 100%
00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Aesop owned in 2022. So it's been an incredible journey. And now every single one of my employees is an owner and we own it. And we have this amazing
00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:23.000
And I mentioned in my talk that one of our BHAGs is to create a thousand millionaires through employee ownership. I'm a huge advocate for
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:32.000
for closing the income inequality gap, it's a massive issue for this country, for the world, but particularly for the United States.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Employee ownership is one way to be able to help people create true wealth.
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:43.000
By owning the company that they work for and that they build value in.
00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:53.000
I love that. And also, too, as you think about, yes, you are a very large company at this point, but there are other ways that smaller businesses, even with one or two employees, technically
00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.000
Oh, yeah.
00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
can have employees as owner too, correct?
00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:04.000
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, I mean, people don't talk about stock options as ownership. People talk about options as
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:12.000
As compensation. And so there, but you don't like, if you want people to think and act like owners, build compensation and incentive plans
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:24.000
around ownership. And even if you just own a small little fraction of a company, it still creates that sense of, I own this. And so you can do that through phantom stock. You can do that through stock options.
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:39.000
You can even simply do it through profit sharing. That's how Stone Age started was through profit sharing and it was so successful in getting people to think about how they were impacting the bottom line, that that's what sparked this homegrown stock ownership program that we did before the ESOP.
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:40.000
Yeah.
00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:45.000
I love that. Also, you mentioned about sensitive conversations that you had to have with the men that
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:51.000
originally owned the company. We got a question in from our audience in terms of being in a predominantly
00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:59.000
male industry, how do you find yourself able to navigate some of those perceptions? In your case, the owner, but also
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:05.000
maybe some of your customers perceive notions about having a woman-led business.
00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:22.000
Yeah, luckily I didn't ever have that with our owners. They wanted something different with their company. They were both really happy to hire a woman. My competition, which I learned all about, were two, what I would call traditional candidates, you know, white men in their
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:41.000
in their mid-50s with lots of manufacturing experience. So John and Jerry, they really are, you know, are visionary, visionary founders. And so I never once felt from them that I was being held back for any reason because I was a woman.
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:47.000
But that is not the case in the industry. I had a customer tell me, so it's
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:55.000
probably maybe a year, year and a half into the job is down in Texas. And he was a VP of the company known throughout the industry.
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:11.000
And he told me, I can't believe that John and Jerry hired you for this position. You know, you really, it's a really technical industry. You have to be pretty technical to make it here, which is basically like you can't be technical because you're a woman. I'm like, whatever. I went to school of mines. Like I studied engineering. Like I'm technical.
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:17.000
But, you know, what he was trying to do was put me in my place.
00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:27.000
And, you know, I had to really think hard about how I wanted to handle that situation and many others where people were like, there's no way that a woman can come and grow this company.
00:52:27.000 --> 00:52:39.000
And, you know, I didn't want to do it feeling like, you know, like I had to prove myself. I spent my whole life trying to prove myself to my dad and to other people. And I was done with that nonsense. Like it just got me to rock bottom.
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:47.000
And so I had to approach it really carefully from myself, right? For my own well-being and mental health. And
00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:58.000
And so, you know, I told him, I was like, well, you know, I appreciate your viewpoints. I am technical and I think that I think that we're going to do great things together. So how can I help you?
00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:13.000
And I just took this as the mindset of like, I'm just going to help. I'm just going to learn as much as I can. And then, you know, my success will either speak for itself or I won't make it. I knew I was going to make it.
00:53:13.000 --> 00:53:22.000
But I did not want to be bitter. I did not want to be upset because I spent 27 years of my life feeling that way.
00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:27.000
And so I made the choice. It was that story I was going to tell myself, right, of around
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:34.000
Am I going to do this to prove him wrong or am I going to do it because I believe in myself and I want to just
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.000
get outside my comfort zone and try. And so that is how I decided to approach it.
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:48.000
And six or seven years later, after we had grown the company tremendously and built all this new equipment that was
00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:57.000
transforming the industry. He told me, you proved me wrong. And that was a really validating thing because I proved him wrong, not because I set out to prove him wrong.
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:07.000
I did it because I set out to say, I believe in myself. And so that's how I approach these situations where somebody says, I can't do something. It's not to prove them wrong.
00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:09.000
It's to say, I believe in myself.
00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:21.000
I love that. And the confidence that you had to have and continuing to just track and not chase the shiny object.
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:22.000
No.
00:54:22.000 --> 00:54:26.000
of trying to make that one client believe that you were qualified, but just still going down your path and following your passion and purpose.
00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:27.000
Exactly.
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:37.000
I think that's amazing. And so when you think about that incredible amount of growth that you've had in the company.
00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:38.000
Yeah.
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:42.000
you must surround yourself with great people. That's the only way you can grow a company like that. So what are some of the core values that you prioritize within your team and how do you
00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:46.000
cultivate that into a positive company culture.
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Yeah. So first and foremost, you have to be a great teammate. That is one of our core values at Stone Age. And so I want people who
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:02.000
want to be part of a great team who value teamwork and who hold themselves accountable for being
00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:17.000
great team members. And that means that you're helpful. That means that you're humble, that you're motivated, that you're never going to say, I'm not going to do that because that's not my job, right? That we're there to help each other be successful.
00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:30.000
That is absolutely one of the values that I hold near and dear. The other thing from an executive level, I tell my team this and it really has resonated and is actually starting to work its way through the entire organization, but
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:35.000
I tell my team, you're executives of this company first, then leaders of your team.
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:45.000
we have to make the best decisions for the company. We're all owners, right? And so like our well-being is based on how well the company does.
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:50.000
not just how well you do running your team, your department, your area of the company.
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:58.000
So your executives first. And so I think having that mindset of I'm responsible for the whole success of the company.
00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Not just for myself or my team is really important to me. And I've had to let a few executives go who did not share that mindset that were
00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:22.000
were what we call empire builders, right? They were really focused on their personal growth and their ambitions, which I have no problem with. I'm ambitious too, but it's got to be through that mindset of we are here to transform our employees lives.
00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:35.000
through employee ownership, through creating great jobs, through innovation, we're here to make sure that our customers go home safely to their families every night because we're in a very dangerous industry and we have to think globally and holistically as executives
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:44.000
Rather than just about myself and my team.
00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Okay.
00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:54.000
So those are the two. And then vulnerability, like you can't work for me and not be vulnerable. I'm going to make you go there. And it's something that I really value. And I think it leads to deep, deep connection. And when we are connected to the people we work with.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:57:04.000
We want to be good teammates. We want to do more for our colleagues. And that's what makes a company great to work for. So vulnerability is another key one for me.
00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:07.000
I love that. And we'll keep it there.
00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Carrie, thank you again for being here with us today. I encourage each and every one of you in our audience today
00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:20.000
to take Carrie's wisdom to heart and implement an ownership mindset in both your personal and professional lives.
00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:27.000
Together, we can foster these environments that promote resiliency and responsibility and accountability.
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:38.000
Also, don't forget, as I always say, if you are not a Cute for Women member, I don't know why you wouldn't at this point, but if you're not a Kiefer Women member, please, please, please join us at
00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:45.000
join K for W to connect with all the wonderful experts and other women in
00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:48.000
to empower you on your journey to success.
00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:54.000
We will send out the recording to everyone and the resources from today's webinar, along with our post-event survey.
00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:59.000
Please make sure you submit your feedback to help inform and influence our future Key for Women program.
00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:06.000
carry with the last minute, I will give you any parting advice or final words for our audience today.
00:58:06.000 --> 00:58:31.000
I mean, just that the ownership mindset is the most empowering mindset that you can have. Like you can transform your life when you own it. So I highly encourage you to look deep inside and how you can take responsibility for everything that happens in your life. And if you want more stuff like this, you can always find my book. I have it right back there. It's called The Ownership Mindset, a handbook for transforming your life and leadership. And you can get it on
00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:37.000
on Amazon or you can go to your local bookstore and have them order it for you.
00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:38.000
Thank you.
00:58:38.000 --> 00:58:39.000
I love it. Congratulations on publishing your first book. That is such an incredible feat.
00:58:39.000 --> 00:58:41.000
Thanks.
00:58:41.000 --> 00:58:47.000
Thank you to our audience for being with us today. And we look forward to connecting with you again in 2025.
00:58:47.000 --> 00:58:48.000
Take care. Thank you.
00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:49.000
Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye.
00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Okay.Well, hello, everyone. I'm Rachel Sampson, the National Director of Key for Women and Head of Community Banking here at KeyBank. And I want to welcome you to our program today.
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I'm excited to share who I have with us today, Carrie Siggins.
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Carrie's the CEO and president of Stone Age Inc.
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As President and CEO, Terry is a visionary leader who has not only excelled in the manufacturing and technology sectors.
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but has also championed the importance of thinking
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And personal responsibility and leadership.
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her journey through various challenges, both personal and professional, which we'll dive in today, serves as an inspiring testament to resilience and the power of embracing our flaws.
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Carrie will share her insights on transforming our approach to leadership
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Which is invaluable regardless of the role that you play within your organization.
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We will explore how embracing our vulnerabilities can lead to deeper connections and greater success
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while addressing the ever-present issue of imposter syndrome.
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As we delve deeper into the conversation, I encourage all of you, please think about your own leadership experiences and how we can
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actionably apply insights to your own journey.
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Please, let's engage, ask questions, share where you're from, who you are, what company you're with, with the chat, so that we can connect and engage with each other throughout today's program as we take away practical strategies to enhance our leadership skills.
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So with that, Carrie, thank you so much for being with us today. Please take it away.
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Thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be here.
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So I was named CEO at the age of 30 and I'm often asked.
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How did you get named CEO at the age of 30, especially in a very male dominated industry, Stone Age manufacturers, industrial cleaning equipment, water jetting equipment, basically high-tech squirt guns on steroids used to clean
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all the dirtiest of applications in the world, like refineries and chemical plants and food processing plants. And here at the age of 30,
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I'm named CEO. And it actually starts with me hitting rock bottom.
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On Labor Day of 2006,
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I found myself on the floor of my apartment
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overdosing from a cocktail of illicit substances.
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I had developed substance abuse issues throughout my 20s due to a multitude of reasons, which I've spent a lot of time in coaching and therapy, figuring out. And what it comes down to is a combination of childhood trauma. My dad left when I was very young and he
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was in and out of my life and was very hard on me and
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And that caused me to have imposter syndrome because I didn't think that I was lovable as is. He would tell me things like, you're not smart enough to go to engineering school. Why are you going to engineering school when I decided I wanted to go to Colorado School of Mines after I graduated? Or he would tell me things like, that's a stupid decision. Why are you so stupid or
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Don't eat that Twinkie. That's just going to make you fatter than you already are. And so
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I spent my whole life thinking that I had to be somebody who I wasn't
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to be loved. That combined with a very ambitious, driven personality, one that likes to take risks and being pretty miserable in my 20s at work.
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led to a very toxic combination and I used substances to cope.
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And I wasn't taking ownership of my life. I was actually really blaming everybody else. I was blaming
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my dad for being so unhappy as weighing my friends for my partying issues. I was blaming
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my boss for being miserable at work and
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That is what caused me to hit rock bottom.
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Because I was just constantly looking to escape my life. And I did that with drugs and alcohol.
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And on Labor Day of 2006, after a long weekend of being out with my friends and not getting any sleep, my body just
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had enough and had enough
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I remember…
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I think I remember falling to the floor. You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about this day.
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But I do remember waking up and I woke up with a shock.
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I was on the floor of my apartment. My heart was racing, but my breathing was incredibly slow. And I knew immediately what was happening.
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But I was too ashamed to call anyone for help.
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There was no way I was going to let anyone see me like this. I was high functioning.
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Even though I had substance abuse issues, I was still driven and I always had the motto of if you party hard, it doesn't matter, you work hard. And I was very driven to succeed. And so I realized that I had been living this sham life of
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of trying to portray the successful exterior where really inside I was
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so miserable. I was so hurting. And quite frankly, I hated myself.
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And so instead of calling anyone for help, I said, if you're going to die, you are not going to die on the floor of your apartment. You're going to at least die in bed. And so I pulled myself up and I got into bed and I laid there for three days.
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And rock bottom for me wasn't almost dying. Rock bottom for me was the fact that I couldn't go to work for three days.
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And the fact that even though I had a thousand friends, I was living in Austin, Texas at the time, and knew everybody. No one called to check on me. I think everybody just assumed that I was at work and they'd see me on the weekend.
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And I realized that I was just living this false life, that I was not successful. In fact, I was miserable.
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And I had to make the choice, am I going to live or am I going to die?
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And even though I was laying there.
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filled with self-hatred.
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So ashamed of myself
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I had this little glimmer of hope. Like I knew that I had something in me that I was supposed to do something
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big with my life.
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And that is what caused me to call my mom and tell her everything.
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So I was 27 years old at the time. And I called my mom and I asked her if I could
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come back and live with her in Durango, Colorado.
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And she said to me, yes, of course. And then she gave me the toughest
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words that she's ever shared, at least that I can remember. And that is.
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Carrie, you have so much potential and you were blowing it.
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And I don't know why you make the choices that you make. I hear you blame other people. And if you want to live the life that you
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dream about the life that you talk about, you have to start taking responsibility for your actions. You are where you are because of the choices you made. This is not anybody else's fault.
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And if you want to lead others, you have to learn how to lead yourself first.
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And this was the first time I had heard of self-leadership and
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It's true. Like, I mean, we lead ourselves every day, right? Whether we're doing it well or whether we're doing it poorly, but I had never thought about how am I leading myself
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And so this was really tough, tough feedback for me to hear from my mom, but I realized that
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the decisions I was making, the mindset that I had, this victim mentality that it was getting me nowhere. In fact, it was getting me worse than nowhere.
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driving me into the ground.
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And so that was my decision, my journey to saying, that's it. I have to start taking responsibility
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For every single thing that happens in my life. If I want to be the kind of person that I know that I can be, I need to understand myself. I need to figure out why I'm making these decisions and how to start empowering myself to be the person I want to be
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Rather than disempowering myself by blaming other people. I needed to be resilient.
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And I was resilient as a little girl. I was tough. I mean, I learned this from my mom. My mom is a single mother, raised two kids.
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In rural Colorado, 15 miles outside of town, she put herself through college when I was a preteen, driving back and forth between Montrose, Colorado and Gunnison, Colorado, which is like brutal weather in the winter.
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putting herself through school, like I had these role models that showed me what resiliency was, what being tough was and
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And I had lost
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my way. So six weeks after my overdose, I had packed up everything in Austin, Texas, and I drove a thousand miles to Durango, Colorado, wondering what am I doing with my life? I had no job.
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I had completely lived beyond my means. I had $100,000 worth of debt between
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car I couldn't afford, apartment I couldn't afford, partying too much, buying too many clothes.
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student loans, all of it had just put this huge weight of debt on me.
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And here I'm driving to this small town in rural Colorado where, you know, do people even get jobs there? Good jobs? It's a service.
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It's a ski town. What am I going to do when I get here?
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But I knew in my heart I needed to go home. I needed to go back to my roots of Colorado. In Colorado. I knew I needed to be with my mom.
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So I could figure out how to turn my life around.
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When I got to Durango, the first thing I did was crush my dirt bike and break my leg or break my foot and dislocate my shoulder.
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And it really gave me a chance to slow down. And I had no idea how to slow down. I had just been pushing myself so hard
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to achieve, to prove that I was successful. And then I was wreaking havoc on my body because of my substance abuse issues.
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I didn't know how to slow down. And here as I go tumbling off of a dirt bike with my mom behind me watching me. It was just proof that the universe was telling me that I had to slow down.
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And when my mother came up to me after, you know, she was following me and I'm on the ground.
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And this far away from being impaled by a dead tree branch that was on the ground and she
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turned me over and she was like, are you like, why are you trying to kill yourself? What are you doing?
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It was just like this perfect like accumulation of just how out of control my life
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was. And so I decided that's it. Like I need to figure out how to slow down and I need to understand myself and I need to get a job.
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So I decided to do two things. One, I didn't have any money to go to therapy, which is what I needed. And I was refused to go to rehab. And a friend of me was telling me about personality assessments as I was lamenting about
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why I was making the decisions that I made and I didn't really know who I was. And he said, well, you know, you could do like the Myers-Briggs personality test. I think they're free online. Like maybe that will help. And so I had never heard of personality assessments. So I go look Google it and get on and take it. And it was when I read the assessment, it was like, oh my God, this is
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This is so reading about myself. This is a book about me
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And it was the beginning of my journey of self-awareness. And I took every single free assessment that I could to start to try to understand
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who I was and why I was making these decisions.
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At the same time, I was applying for jobs. And that's when I came across Stone Age. And Stone Age was looking for a general manager at the time. I had never run a company before, nor had I actually managed a person, but I had an engineering degree, a business degree. I'd worked in manufacturing when I was in Austin at a huge manufacturing company, Eaton Corporation, significantly bigger than Stone Age at the time. So
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I thought, you know what? I'm going to apply for this job.
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And even if I don't get it, maybe it's my foot in the door for another role in the company. This is really the only manufacturing company in Durango. So I'm going to try for it and see.
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And I got an interview with the founders only because of Colorado School of Mines on my resume. The founders both went to mine, graduated from mines. One was working there when he met the founder. That's where they started the company.
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So I'm really, really grateful that I didn't listen to my dad and that I went to engineering school because there's no way they would have ever decided to interview me because I was so young and lacked
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the experience of actually running a company and
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And I'll never forget as I was meeting with John and Jerry, our founders, and they were asking me.
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Questions about, you know, running a company and
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There was no way that I could BS my way through this. Like I had done so much of my life because I clearly had never done this before. So
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I answered.
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So often, so often
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Well, I've never done that before, but this is how I think about it. This is how I would
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approach it. These are the questions that I would ask.
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And they…
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Even though I was underqualified, they decided that
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I was humbled that I could learn, that I was curious, that I was a good cultural fit, and they ultimately decided to hire me.
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And I started on January 2nd of 2007, literally almost exactly three months
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from my overdose.
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And they did not know this story at the time. I'm really good at faking it till you make it. And I was so incredibly grateful.
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And I had no idea at the time what this opportunity was. I did look at it as an opportunity to
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to start my life over.
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But really what working for Stone Age did was save my life.
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Because I had the opportunity to do what I was really good at. I didn't know what I was good at, but I love leadership and I love strategy and I love disruption and
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pulling all the complex pieces of business together. And I had no idea what that but and here I get this incredibly lucky opportunity to
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to build a company. And it is what I was meant to do. And it allowed me to throw the intensity that I do everything in life with
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Including drugs into figuring out how to be a leader, how to be a leader worth following.
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how to lead myself well and how to build a company.
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And I do not believe that I would be here today
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alive if John and Jerry would not have given me, sorry, I'm going to get emotional. If Don and Jerry wouldn't have given me the
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opportunity to take this role when it was a huge risk. And in fact.
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When my book came out, The Ownership Mindset last year and John Wolgamott read it, at the time was the president when he hired me of the company.
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And he said, you know, Carrie, it was like giving the keys to a Porsche to a 16 year old.
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Like I thought you had a 50 50 shot of making it. And I was thought we were crazy for doing this, but it's proved to be incredibly successful.
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The company was about 8 million in revenue at the time when I took it over and we are almost 100 million now where we've grown completely organically.
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With no outside investors, we have gone through a buyout transition, buying out our founders. We're 100% employee owned. So now
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All of our employees are owners and it has just been this incredibly remarkable journey.
00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:20.000
And as I was preparing for this talk today, I was really thinking about
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you know, reflecting on what those last almost 18 years has been like and how did I
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get to where I am today with the opportunity to speak to all of you and to share this story. And it really comes down to
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:40.000
resilience. It comes down from being able to bounce back
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from anything in life. It comes down to taking responsibility for everything that happens in my life.
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And that is what the ownership mindset is. And it's why I wrote this book is to inspire
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not just teaching people how to build a company that encourages people to think and act like owner, that inspires people to think and act like owners. But how do you do that yourself? How do you say, I am responsible for every single thing that happens in my life?
00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:14.000
Things don't happen to me. They happen because of me, because I have been able to change my life.
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Because of resiliency, because of perseverance, because of being able to pick myself up off the floor in Austin, Texas
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Wondering if I even wanted to live because I was questioning it at the time.
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Do I want to live or do I just want to succumb to my misery and self-hatred?
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And luckily, thank God I made the decision that I was not going to succumb to it.
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And by being able to pick myself up off of the floor, hitting rock bottom.
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having the courage to pick up my life, having the support system to be able to go back home
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And rebuild my life to turn it into the life of my dreams.
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Never would have happened without
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resiliency without perseverance, without being able to turn obstacles into
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into opportunities, challenges into opportunities for growth.
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And so that's why I want to share with you today are my five tips for building resiliency. And there's lots that are out there, but
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But these are the things that really had profound impact in my life.
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So the first one is the ownership mindset, right? Taking responsibility for everything that happens to you.
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And so I want to share a story that exemplifies this in its essence.
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The hardest piece of feedback that I've ever received was not from my mother. It was from a colleague of mine. It was from my VP of operations and engineering. This was probably, oh gosh.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:51.000
eight or nine years ago and
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We were butting heads. He wanted to be COO, eventually CEO.
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He was my right hand person, but he did not have what I thought was the
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What's the word I'm looking for? He did not have the
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temperament to be a CEO following me. Plus, I'm not going anywhere, right? I was like in my thirties at the time, like I'm not going to not be CEO here. So like, why are we having this conversation? And so we were going back and forth and I told him like, I just, I just don't see it wrong. I just don't see that you're going to be the next CEO. Like, and I don't understand why we're having this conversation. And he said, you know what?
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:40.000
You think that you are this inspiring CEO. You think that you're disruptive and really what you are is erratic and you are incredibly hard to work for.
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And I'm really frustrated and I don't know if I can work here
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And I was completely taken back.
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erratic, really hard to work for. Those are not words that I
00:19:53.000 --> 00:20:01.000
used to describe my leadership. And it took everything in me to hold it together and to not
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yell at him and tell him to get out of my office. But I said, okay, well, that is really hard feet, harsh feedback. And I need to process what you just told me. So
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Why don't we circle back tomorrow when I haven't had time to think about how I want to have the rest of this conversation?
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And so he left and I barely made it to my car before I was in tears. And I went home and I was bawling on the couch and my husband came home and he asked me what happened and I shared the story with him and he had a few choice words for Roland.
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And then he said, look, Carrie, you are the most driven human being I know. And you do push hard and you do have this
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crazy, incredible vision of transforming the industry and creating a thousand millionaires through employee ownership and doing all of these things that are really big.
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And it can be really exhausting.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:06.000
But it's also why people love working for you because you have this vision and you are driven. So take the piece of feedback, take the good from this piece of feedback and let the rest go.
00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.000
And so I really appreciated that
00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:21.000
that from him. My husband's not great at giving me good advice. Usually it's advice that I don't want to hear. But this was a really great piece. And so I thought about that all night when I wasn't sleeping.
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.000
How can I take the good from this piece of feedback and let the rest go?
00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.000
And so I decided to focus on the word erratic because
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I realized that that was what stung the most. I do move really fast. And the reality is, is that I'm 15 steps ahead
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:44.000
of everyone else because I see this vision. I love to anticipate
00:21:44.000 --> 00:22:04.000
where the industry is going. And I wasn't doing a good job of tying it back to the work that we're doing every single day. And so sometimes my decision making would feel maybe a little bit erratic because I wasn't connecting the dots for everyone about, hey, we're making this decision to invest in this type of technology because this is where the vision is. This is the future.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:17.000
And so I decided that that was it. I was going to write out what the future looks like. It's literally a document that says what the future looks like. We still use it today to drive our strategy. And it was my vision of the future.
00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:27.000
And I also realized that I do have this big personality and that maybe my passion could come across in ways that I didn't intend. Maybe it was
00:22:27.000 --> 00:22:40.000
overbearing or even sometimes aggressive. And I decided in that moment that I was always going to be cool, calm, and collected, that I was going to be an unflappable leader and that nobody was ever going to tell me that I was erratic again.
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:57.000
And so the next day when Roland and I circle back, he comes into my office and I said, you know, I really want to thank you for this feedback. And he said, Carrie, no, I want to apologize first. He was like, I was so angry with you. I just wanted you to tell me that you thought
00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:59.000
that I was good enough to be a CEO.
00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:04.000
Not that I wanted your job. And when you didn't tell me that it hurt.
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:18.000
And I could so relate to that. Like that was not what my intention was. But when I listened to my dad tell me how I wasn't good enough to be anything either and how that made me feel. And so I could completely relate to how he took
00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:21.000
the way I was saying what I was saying.
00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:23.000
And I appreciated that.
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:35.000
And I said, thank you, Roland. I really am grateful for your apology. And I accept it. But I also want you to know that this is the biggest gift that you could have given me.
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:50.000
And I am going to do some changing of my leadership style. So that way I don't, it doesn't feel like I'm chasing shiny objects or that it doesn't feel like it's always difficult or that I'm too amped up about things.
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:59.000
And from that moment on, Cool, Calm, and Collected is my mantra. And it is how I approach everything in life. And it has radically changed my leadership style.
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:06.000
And Roland did eventually leave the company about six months later. We left on good terms. We're still friends. He's doing great things.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:12.000
He is not a CEO, but he loves his life. And it was really good that he left the company because
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:19.000
It allowed me to flourish. It allowed other people to be able to flourish and grow in their roles. And so
00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:24.000
This is how taking responsibility for everything that happens to you
00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:30.000
can play out, right? It's hard to hear feedback like that. It's hard to take a deep look at yourself and say, huh.
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:38.000
how can I own a piece of that? What is true in what that person just told me? And how can I be a better person for it?
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.000
That is taking responsibility for everything in your life.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:49.000
The second thing that I want to talk about is building a support system. We all need people in our corners
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to be resilient.
00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.000
If I would not have been able to lean on my mother, I would not have been able to bounce back.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:03.000
If I have not been able to lean on my team, I would not be able to bounce back.
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:11.000
In fact, right now, I'm going through a divorce. My husband and I have decided to split up and it is an incredible
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:16.000
incredibly painful thing to go through, even though I want it.
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:19.000
And it's going to be
00:25:19.000 --> 00:25:21.000
one of the toughest things that I've ever
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:31.000
have done. We have a 12 year old son who loves both of us and we love both of him. And we have really tough decisions to make as we're going through this.
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:43.000
And I am so grateful for the support system that I have been able to build that is allowing me to get through this really challenging time because I can lean on them.
00:25:43.000 --> 00:25:49.000
I can lean on my mom. I can lean on my girlfriends. I can lean on my team. I just, I'm in.
00:25:49.000 --> 00:26:03.000
my new house, I'm home instead of in my office because my son has the bird flu right now. And this, I moved into this new house this weekend and my team came over and helped me move so that
00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:07.000
My husband didn't have to be the one to move me in.
00:26:07.000 --> 00:26:20.000
To be able to have those kinds of relationships and that kind of support system allows you to be strong. Like we are not strong simply on our own. We are strong because of the people we surround ourselves with.
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:37.000
So building that support system is incredibly important and it doesn't have to be a huge support system. It just needs to be a strong one. Those people who you can lean on when you are feeling down, when you feel like you can't do it, because you can do it. You can get through anything.
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:49.000
Even though it might feel like in the moment that it's really big and it's really hard, but when you can lean on somebody to say, I need help or I need to talk or can we just go for a walk or can you help me move?
00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:03.000
Two or three days later, it's amazing. Like, okay, you know what? I'm better. I can get through this. And two or three months later, you're like, okay, I'm not just getting through this, but I'm doing great. And then two or three years later, you're like, I'm thriving.
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:13.000
And that takes that kind of support system to be able to help you move through these really difficult times that we all face in our lives.
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:16.000
Never underestimate the power
00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:19.000
of your support system.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:24.000
The third aspect of resiliency is getting outside your comfort zone.
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:30.000
I know that a lot of people don't like to get outside of their comfort zones. Change is hard. Change brings
00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.000
uncertainty and uncertainty brings fear.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:41.000
But look, we do not grow as human beings if we stay in our comfort zones.
00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:49.000
We have to grow as human beings. So when we get outside of our comfort zones, we expand our competency zones.
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:57.000
So imagine if I would not have applied for the general manager position at Stone Age back in 2006.
00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:09.000
I was completely getting out of my comfort zone to be able to do that, to say, I am not qualified for this position, but I'm going to bet on myself and I'm just going to see what door opens
00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:15.000
When I do this and it dramatically changed my life going in and saying
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:21.000
I've never done that before, but this is how I would think about it over and over and over again.
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:26.000
can feel humiliating. It was humiliating. I was like, why am I here? I am so…
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:35.000
not qualified for this position, right? Imposter syndrome was so real in that moment. And it was, I was being an imposter. Like I didn't have the
00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:46.000
qualifications and the skill set and experience to do this job. But I got out of my comfort zone and I just said, you know what? A door is going to open because I do this.
00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:49.000
It's the same thing for you.
00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:54.000
The only way to get good at doing hard things is to do hard things.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.000
to push yourself, to grow.
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:07.000
And when you get outside of your comfort zone, that is how you gain self-confidence, right? We all talk about confidence and confidence is a requirement of being able to be
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:12.000
resilient. You have to believe in yourself. But things are not going to ever just be handed to you. And when
00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Things are handed to you, it doesn't actually build your confidence, right? We know that as parents, right? When we praise our kids for not doing
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:24.000
much, we're not building their confidence when we teach them how to do things for themselves.
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:30.000
That's how we build our confidence. So getting outside your comfort zone is how you build resiliency.
00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:38.000
And you know what? You're gonna suck at doing whatever you're doing, right? We're always not, we're never good at doing something new when we first start.
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:57.000
That's okay. Like I'm learning how to play golf right now. I am terrible at golf. I don't like doing sports that I'm not good at, but it's really important to my son. He loves golf. He's a great golfer at 12 years old. And I want to be able to do the things that he loves to do. And so I'm getting outside of my comfort zone and I'm learning how to play golf. And I know that
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:07.000
Like in a year, I'm going to be a little bit better in a year, a little bit better. And I'm like all golfers, I will never be good, but it's getting outside of that comfort zone so that you can do
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:14.000
things in your life that you did not think that you were capable of doing, that you did not think that you wanted to do, you can.
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:18.000
So don't be afraid to get outside that comfort zone.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:21.000
The fourth aspect of
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:28.000
being resilient and being able to bounce back from anything is the ability to let things go.
00:30:28.000 --> 00:30:30.000
Take a deep breath. In fact.
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:37.000
Everybody right now, let's just take a deep breath, right?
00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:39.000
When we take a deep breath.
00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:47.000
We calm ourselves. We calm our nervous systems. We can become grounded and centered. And that's really important
00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:51.000
for our ability to be able to let things go.
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:54.000
Baggage does what baggage does.
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:57.000
it weighs you down. It holds you back.
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:00.000
Do not let your baggage hold you back.
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.000
How are you dealing
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:09.000
with your past trauma, with your baggage, with your confidence, with things that
00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:11.000
you don't like in your life.
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:13.000
with relationships that you
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:22.000
that aren't giving you what you need. Are you hanging on to them? Are you figuring out how to be able to let them go? And letting them go doesn't mean
00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:26.000
we getting rid of them, right? Letting go means forgiving.
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:35.000
Letting go means making the decision that I'm not going to let the story I'm telling myself impact my life. In
00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:38.000
I'm going to tell myself a different story.
00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:43.000
The only thing that exists is this moment right now.
00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:45.000
We cannot predict the outcome.
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:58.000
of the future. We don't know what is going to happen in the next moment. We spend a lot of time thinking about it, obsessing about it, worrying about it, trying to manifest it, but we don't really know what the outcome is going to be of the decisions that we're making.
00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:03.000
And we can't change the past. The past is already gone. We're not living in that.
00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:08.000
But what we can do is decide what story we're going to tell ourselves.
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:11.000
And we can make that story be anything that we want.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:19.000
I could tell myself a story that my overdose was embarrassing, humiliating, and I'm never going to talk about it.
00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:28.000
Or I can say, you know what, it was the inflection point in my life and it is the day that I am most grateful for besides the day I had my son.
00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:37.000
Because it allowed me to change my life and telling my story has allowed me to help thousands and thousands of people believe in themselves
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:45.000
to pick their lives up from whatever their rock bottom looks like and make changes to live a more fulfilling life.
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:47.000
The incident happened.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:53.000
The story that I choose to tell myself is what allows me to be able to move forward. It allows me
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:59.000
to let go of the shame and the guilt and the self-hatred that I had to be able to build
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:02.000
gratitude and resilience and love
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:07.000
for that incident.
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:10.000
you can let things go. You can choose to tell yourself
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.000
Whatever story you want about what happened.
00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:23.000
And because you get to choose that, choose a story of love, choose a story of gratitude, choose a story of resilience and let it go.
00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:28.000
Do not let your baggage weigh you down.
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.000
Move forward by letting things go.
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:35.000
And then finally, never give up.
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:37.000
The story of resilience
00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:42.000
only happens when you persevere, when you say.
00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:49.000
This is really tough and I am not going to give up. And giving up doesn't mean that you don't change your mind.
00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:54.000
I have done all kinds of things, set out all kinds of goals that I have realized like, uh-uh.
00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:07.000
This isn't what I want. That's okay. I can change my mind. You know what? This isn't going to work out like the way I thought it was. That's not giving up, right? I still have a vision that I want for my life and I am never going to give up
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:15.000
on what that vision is. And if the route that I take is going to not get me there, then I'm going to be willing to pivot.
00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:19.000
that is not giving up. Giving up means that you say, you know what?
00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:27.000
I'm giving up on myself. This dream that I had, I'm not going to go for it anymore. And that dream that I had, maybe it's going to morph into something else because
00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:33.000
I want something different or I realize that that dream was not going to get me
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:44.000
to where I wanted to be, but I'm not giving up on myself. I'm going to keep investing in myself. I'm going to keep growing and keep learning and keep pivoting until I create the life that I want.
00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:50.000
Giving up means believing in the person that you can be.
00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:53.000
It doesn't mean that you have to
00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:55.000
stay stuck on
00:34:55.000 --> 00:35:00.000
a certain goal or a certain vision for yourself.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:13.000
That can change as you grow. In fact, as we grow and we mature, it absolutely changes. The things that were important to me 10 years ago are very different than the things that are important to me now. That is called growth, but it's not giving up.
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.000
Giving up is when you say, I'm giving up on myself.
00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:27.000
Perseverance, resilience, being able to be moldable, flexible, adaptable. That is what resiliency is, but it's never, ever giving up.
00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:39.000
on yourself. I love this quote. I want to read it to you here. It comes from Psychology Today, and it says that resilience is the ineffable quality that allows some people
00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:43.000
to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:49.000
Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise
00:35:49.000 --> 00:35:51.000
From the ashes.
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:56.000
Psychologists have identified some of the factors that make someone resilient, including a positive attitude.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:01.000
Optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, cool, calm, and collected.
00:36:01.000 --> 00:36:06.000
And the ability to see failure as a form of helpful feedback.
00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:11.000
Even after misfortune, resilient people are blessed with such an outlook
00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:14.000
that they can change course and soldier on.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:20.000
That is the story of my life. And that can be the story of your life too.
00:36:20.000 --> 00:36:22.000
You just have to choose it.
00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:31.000
I really appreciate you all allowing me to share some of my story today. Thank you for allowing me to be vulnerable. There's a lot going on right now.
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:44.000
And I really, really appreciate KeyBank for the opportunity for today. And hopefully this inspired you to look at how you can be more resilient in your life.
00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.000
Wow. Thank you, Carrie. That
00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:49.000
Thank you.
00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:54.000
was incredible. Thankfully, you and I have had a couple of opportunities to get to know each other and
00:36:54.000 --> 00:37:05.000
you are you all the time, which I love. From the first time we had a meeting, her son did come into the room, as many of us can attest to, like it's time to go golfing, mom. Okay, I got to go.
00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:10.000
And I love that, right? Because in that moment, you're creating space and opportunity to be you and
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.000
Prioritize those things that are most important so
00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:16.000
Yeah.
00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:23.000
I just want to say I appreciate your vulnerability. It's so admirable to share some of those hard things.
00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:24.000
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:25.000
But also, I love how you talked about the story that we tell ourselves. And that's really where I want to start, because especially
00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:30.000
you know us as a lot of women and those who maybe identify or not
00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:37.000
you know, we can be overachievers sometimes, right? We're always looking at what we did wrong so we can fix it.
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:47.000
So how do you balance the two between the story that you tell yourself, but also that continuous improvement mindset as you talked about the strategy, the toughness.
00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:49.000
always wanting to make things better.
00:37:49.000 --> 00:38:18.000
Yeah, the story that you tell yourself can't like not be in like based in reality, right? I mean, you can't just say, okay, this completely didn't happen, right? It's still taking the heart of whatever situation that you're in. And it's saying, am I going to choose to
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:19.000
Lulu.
00:38:19.000 --> 00:38:21.000
let this take me down? Or am I going to choose to grow from it? And so I think that is the key, right? I mean, as my son says, like, don't be delulu mom, right? We don't want to be delusional and tell ourselves a completely false story.
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:26.000
That's not what the ownership mindset is. The ownership mindset is really about saying, okay.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.000
This is the situation that's in front of me.
00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:41.000
Here is how I am responsible for it or for a portion of it. Here's my ownership in this. What story am I going to tell myself so that I can grow and learn and improve and move forward from it?
00:38:41.000 --> 00:38:52.000
That's what the balance is. It's not about pretending something didn't happen, right? Sweeping things under the rug, all that gets you is a lumpy rug and nobody wants a lumpy rug.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:39:02.000
And so, yeah, so I think that's really the key is that the stories you tell yourself has to still be grounded in the ownership mindset. And that is I can own
00:39:02.000 --> 00:39:21.000
I can own a piece of this situation. I can own this situation fully and I can take responsibility and accountability for it. And I can tell myself a story of positivity, resilience, growth, and learning from it.
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:22.000
Yeah.
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:23.000
I love that. I love that. And to FYI to our audience, and Carrie, please don't kill me. Her son is also sick. So she has managing a company.
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:34.000
moving, going through a divorce. Her son is sick all at the same time. And she is still just here on camera and helping us and being so resilient. And I think it just goes to show just
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000
how incredible you are. So I really appreciate that.
00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:40.000
One thing I want to talk about that you mentioned as well was
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:42.000
You know, when you got into the role
00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:52.000
you didn't think that you were qualified. And we hear that a lot, right? Like when women take a look at a job description and we have to have at least 80% of the
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.000
Right.
00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:03.000
experience before we'd even consider applying versus a man says.
00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:04.000
Right.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.000
Not to broad brush because I know it's not everyone, but 20% saying, I can do it, I'll figure it out. I'll learn on the job. It'll be okay. So like.
00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:07.000
How did you balance like being
00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:13.000
you know, I'm sure probably some fear in that when you decided to take that leap.
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:29.000
Well, part of it is my personality and I'm a risk taker. So I don't underestimate the power of having a risk-taking personality. I'm also the detriments that it can also bring to your life. But yeah, I…
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:34.000
So here, the honest truth of it is that it was part
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:37.000
Heart desperation.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:42.000
Parts going, I think I can do that.
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:45.000
I've done all of this in a much bigger company
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:51.000
And that is what combined me to get over the fear of
00:40:51.000 --> 00:41:00.000
of putting it out there. And when we apply for jobs, like it stings if we never hear back, but you know, the reality is that most of us don't hear back from positions. In fact.
00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:08.000
Every position that I never heard back from and stressed myself out over. I promised myself when I was a leader, I was never going to do that to anybody.
00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:15.000
But I was like, you know, if I might not get a call back, that's okay. But the only way to get a job is to apply for them.
00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:32.000
And so, and I was desperate for a job. And so that's how I forced myself to do it. And I did have to force myself to do it because it was really scary. It's not imposter syndrome. Like I wasn't qualified for the position. I was absolutely the right person for the job.
00:41:32.000 --> 00:41:44.000
But I did not know that at the time. But that desperation and the risk taking personality, and then just that little like twink inkling in my mind going like, I've done all of these things.
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:48.000
Maybe I could do this. Like, why not just
00:41:48.000 --> 00:41:53.000
Throw your name in the hat. If you don't hear back, you don't hear back. But for sure, it's a no if you don't apply.
00:41:53.000 --> 00:42:00.000
So that's how I talked myself into doing it.
00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:01.000
Yeah.
00:42:01.000 --> 00:42:07.000
I love it. What's the worst that can happen? Like you said, I love that. You know, and you mentioned, like you said, about risk taking. Statistically speaking, women generally are not risk takers.
00:42:07.000 --> 00:42:15.000
But when you couple that with resilience and toughness, as you said, you know, that pendulum could swing sometimes too far.
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:23.000
How do you now self-regulate and how do you know when that pendulum has swung too far where maybe you are so resilient that you are
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:26.000
crossing over to dangerous, stressful territory.
00:42:26.000 --> 00:42:32.000
Yeah. I mean, you have to pay attention. Like the biggest clue is knowing in your body.
00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:38.000
Understanding what's going on in your body, your body tells you so many things.
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:43.000
And so that's how I pay attention to it because I absolutely push myself too hard.
00:42:43.000 --> 00:42:53.000
And I have pushed myself too hard to the brink of burnout breakdown.
00:42:53.000 --> 00:43:04.000
I guess three years after my son was born, we tried to have another baby and I miscarried and I had all kinds of health issues because of it. But I was just like, you know what? I don't have time for health issues. And so I'm just going to push through it.
00:43:04.000 --> 00:43:11.000
And that is the hugest mistake. And my body was trying to tell me
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:16.000
You can't do this anymore. But I refuse to listen because I was being too resilient. It was like, I don't have time for this.
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:24.000
And then it shut down. My adrenals went into overload. I had to go into my doctor. I was having all kinds of issues with bleeding and
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:28.000
just really not a good spot. And she was like, your adrenals are completely tapped out.
00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:45.000
You cannot do anything but yin yoga for 30 days. Now I am an avid exerciser. I traded one addiction for another. I traded my Coke problem for running ultra marathons. I don't run an ultra marathons anymore, but I was doing that at the time.
00:43:45.000 --> 00:44:01.000
And again, just another coping mechanism that was at least slightly a bit healthier. But I just pushed myself too far. And so I think you just have to really listen to your body. You have to listen to the people around you. Like my husband was trying to tell me, like, you're just doing too much. Like, you know, you need to slow down.
00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:14.000
And so my body shut down. And so I think that's the biggest thing is pay attention to what your body's telling you. If you're feeling yourself burning out, if you're losing motivation, if you can't sleep.
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:26.000
If you are fatigued, if you hurt yourself, that is your body telling you that you are trying to be too resilient and that you need to just back off a little bit and be kinder and softer on yourself.
00:44:26.000 --> 00:44:43.000
Those were not words that were in my vocabulary back then, but they are now like self-love, self-care, taking time off, sitting on laying in bed and reading a book for a couple of hours. That is my jam these days. But because I had that mindset of.
00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:48.000
Always be resilient, always bounce back, always push yourself, always do more.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:52.000
You run yourself into the ground.
00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:53.000
Right.
00:44:53.000 --> 00:44:56.000
I can relate there. Absolutely. And yes, taking that time off is so important, you know, especially
00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:00.000
Yeah.
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.000
Yeah.
00:45:01.000 --> 00:45:06.000
When you do have so many goals and supporting family and loved ones, it can be hard. But I think that's a great place to pause as well for our audience to
00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:07.000
Yeah.
00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:10.000
Take a deep breath. Thank you, Marie, as well.
00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.000
body and breath awareness. So we'll take a quick moment to do that and also tell
00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:18.000
everyone today, thank you so much for joining. Continue to
00:45:18.000 --> 00:45:33.000
drop your questions in the chat. We'll get to as many as possible. But I want to make sure that you have an opportunity. If you are not already a Kiefer Women member, to use the QR code on your screen or go to key.com slash
00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:37.000
join cave for W to be a part of our program.
00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:40.000
So with that, Carrie, let's shift gears just a bit.
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:48.000
When we talked about what was interesting is that you talk a lot about an employee
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:49.000
Mm-hmm.
00:45:49.000 --> 00:45:58.000
having an ownership mindset, regardless of whatever role you have. But you did something interesting that you talked about in that
00:45:58.000 --> 00:45:59.000
Yeah.
00:45:59.000 --> 00:46:00.000
you transition the business into an ESOP where the employees are now owners. That's a huge step now giving that
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:03.000
you probably have a lot more
00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:05.000
losses than you previously had.
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:11.000
Tell me about that transition and the courage that it took to go there and how that transition has gone since.
00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:16.000
Sure. So our founders uh our founders
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:32.000
When the founders hired me, they were in their mid-50s, right? They knew that they wanted to do other things and that they had grown the company too as far as they would be able to take it. But they didn't really weren't thinking about succession in terms of like ownership, ownership.
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:48.000
And we actually had had a stock ownership program prior to becoming an ESOP where employees could buy stock in the company. Our founders are incredible visionaries, incredibly generous men, and they wanted to share in the success of the company. So employees were buying shares of the company.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:55.000
But it wasn't a sustainable model. And in 2013, 14, now they're in their mid
00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:04.000
in their mid-60s, I was like, you know, you guys, I mean, I'd have a hard conversation with them. Like you guys at any time something could happen. And you know, what happens
00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:13.000
If one of you dies or both of you dies, who owns this company? The machinist who's been buying stock in the company for the last 20 years
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:20.000
He loves the idea of being an owner, but he doesn't really want the responsibility of owning the company.
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:25.000
And so it was incredibly hard conversation to have with the two of them because
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:31.000
You know, they were comfortable with handing leadership over to me. We'd been doing this for a decade now, but now it's like.
00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:34.000
We have to actually sell our stock.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:41.000
And so it was a lot of really crucial conversations, high stakes conversations of
00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:53.000
of being able to approach them in a way that they could hear me, but also not to offend them when we're saying we need a sustainable ownership plan because you two are getting older and
00:47:53.000 --> 00:47:57.000
We need to make sure that this company can exist for another 40 years.
00:47:57.000 --> 00:48:15.000
And because we had already created this employee ownership plan where any employee could buy stock in the company, we decided that an ESOP was the next best route for us because it allows all employees to be able to own the company. So an ESOP is an employee stock ownership plan.
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:31.000
It is a qualified retirement plan. It's set up by ERISA and the Department of Labor as a way for founders to be able to sell shares to employees and do it in a really structured way that allows for sustainability and protection of
00:48:31.000 --> 00:48:44.000
the employee owners. There are other lots of, and I love employee ownership. I'm a huge advocate for it. There's lots of other models of it, different ways to approach it. But we wanted a real sustainable structure for us to be able to go forward.
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:51.000
And so over that year, we made the decision that we were going to become an ESOP company and
00:48:51.000 --> 00:49:01.000
And the founder sold some of their shares to the ESOP and along with some of the other employee shareholders. And over eight years, we bought everybody out and we became 100%
00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:11.000
Aesop owned in 2022. So it's been an incredible journey. And now every single one of my employees is an owner and we own it. And we have this amazing
00:49:11.000 --> 00:49:23.000
And I mentioned in my talk that one of our BHAGs is to create a thousand millionaires through employee ownership. I'm a huge advocate for
00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:32.000
for closing the income inequality gap, it's a massive issue for this country, for the world, but particularly for the United States.
00:49:32.000 --> 00:49:38.000
Employee ownership is one way to be able to help people create true wealth.
00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:43.000
By owning the company that they work for and that they build value in.
00:49:43.000 --> 00:49:53.000
I love that. And also, too, as you think about, yes, you are a very large company at this point, but there are other ways that smaller businesses, even with one or two employees, technically
00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.000
Oh, yeah.
00:49:54.000 --> 00:49:57.000
can have employees as owner too, correct?
00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:04.000
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, I mean, people don't talk about stock options as ownership. People talk about options as
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:12.000
As compensation. And so there, but you don't like, if you want people to think and act like owners, build compensation and incentive plans
00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:24.000
around ownership. And even if you just own a small little fraction of a company, it still creates that sense of, I own this. And so you can do that through phantom stock. You can do that through stock options.
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:39.000
You can even simply do it through profit sharing. That's how Stone Age started was through profit sharing and it was so successful in getting people to think about how they were impacting the bottom line, that that's what sparked this homegrown stock ownership program that we did before the ESOP.
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:40.000
Yeah.
00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:45.000
I love that. Also, you mentioned about sensitive conversations that you had to have with the men that
00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:51.000
originally owned the company. We got a question in from our audience in terms of being in a predominantly
00:50:51.000 --> 00:50:59.000
male industry, how do you find yourself able to navigate some of those perceptions? In your case, the owner, but also
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:05.000
maybe some of your customers perceive notions about having a woman-led business.
00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:22.000
Yeah, luckily I didn't ever have that with our owners. They wanted something different with their company. They were both really happy to hire a woman. My competition, which I learned all about, were two, what I would call traditional candidates, you know, white men in their
00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:41.000
in their mid-50s with lots of manufacturing experience. So John and Jerry, they really are, you know, are visionary, visionary founders. And so I never once felt from them that I was being held back for any reason because I was a woman.
00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:47.000
But that is not the case in the industry. I had a customer tell me, so it's
00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:55.000
probably maybe a year, year and a half into the job is down in Texas. And he was a VP of the company known throughout the industry.
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:11.000
And he told me, I can't believe that John and Jerry hired you for this position. You know, you really, it's a really technical industry. You have to be pretty technical to make it here, which is basically like you can't be technical because you're a woman. I'm like, whatever. I went to school of mines. Like I studied engineering. Like I'm technical.
00:52:11.000 --> 00:52:17.000
But, you know, what he was trying to do was put me in my place.
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And, you know, I had to really think hard about how I wanted to handle that situation and many others where people were like, there's no way that a woman can come and grow this company.
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And, you know, I didn't want to do it feeling like, you know, like I had to prove myself. I spent my whole life trying to prove myself to my dad and to other people. And I was done with that nonsense. Like it just got me to rock bottom.
00:52:39.000 --> 00:52:47.000
And so I had to approach it really carefully from myself, right? For my own well-being and mental health. And
00:52:47.000 --> 00:52:58.000
And so, you know, I told him, I was like, well, you know, I appreciate your viewpoints. I am technical and I think that I think that we're going to do great things together. So how can I help you?
00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:13.000
And I just took this as the mindset of like, I'm just going to help. I'm just going to learn as much as I can. And then, you know, my success will either speak for itself or I won't make it. I knew I was going to make it.
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But I did not want to be bitter. I did not want to be upset because I spent 27 years of my life feeling that way.
00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:27.000
And so I made the choice. It was that story I was going to tell myself, right, of around
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:34.000
Am I going to do this to prove him wrong or am I going to do it because I believe in myself and I want to just
00:53:34.000 --> 00:53:40.000
get outside my comfort zone and try. And so that is how I decided to approach it.
00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:48.000
And six or seven years later, after we had grown the company tremendously and built all this new equipment that was
00:53:48.000 --> 00:53:57.000
transforming the industry. He told me, you proved me wrong. And that was a really validating thing because I proved him wrong, not because I set out to prove him wrong.
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:07.000
I did it because I set out to say, I believe in myself. And so that's how I approach these situations where somebody says, I can't do something. It's not to prove them wrong.
00:54:07.000 --> 00:54:09.000
It's to say, I believe in myself.
00:54:09.000 --> 00:54:21.000
I love that. And the confidence that you had to have and continuing to just track and not chase the shiny object.
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:22.000
No.
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of trying to make that one client believe that you were qualified, but just still going down your path and following your passion and purpose.
00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:27.000
Exactly.
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:37.000
I think that's amazing. And so when you think about that incredible amount of growth that you've had in the company.
00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:38.000
Yeah.
00:54:38.000 --> 00:54:42.000
you must surround yourself with great people. That's the only way you can grow a company like that. So what are some of the core values that you prioritize within your team and how do you
00:54:42.000 --> 00:54:46.000
cultivate that into a positive company culture.
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:56.000
Yeah. So first and foremost, you have to be a great teammate. That is one of our core values at Stone Age. And so I want people who
00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:02.000
want to be part of a great team who value teamwork and who hold themselves accountable for being
00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:17.000
great team members. And that means that you're helpful. That means that you're humble, that you're motivated, that you're never going to say, I'm not going to do that because that's not my job, right? That we're there to help each other be successful.
00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:30.000
That is absolutely one of the values that I hold near and dear. The other thing from an executive level, I tell my team this and it really has resonated and is actually starting to work its way through the entire organization, but
00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:35.000
I tell my team, you're executives of this company first, then leaders of your team.
00:55:35.000 --> 00:55:45.000
we have to make the best decisions for the company. We're all owners, right? And so like our well-being is based on how well the company does.
00:55:45.000 --> 00:55:50.000
not just how well you do running your team, your department, your area of the company.
00:55:50.000 --> 00:55:58.000
So your executives first. And so I think having that mindset of I'm responsible for the whole success of the company.
00:55:58.000 --> 00:56:07.000
Not just for myself or my team is really important to me. And I've had to let a few executives go who did not share that mindset that were
00:56:07.000 --> 00:56:22.000
were what we call empire builders, right? They were really focused on their personal growth and their ambitions, which I have no problem with. I'm ambitious too, but it's got to be through that mindset of we are here to transform our employees lives.
00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:35.000
through employee ownership, through creating great jobs, through innovation, we're here to make sure that our customers go home safely to their families every night because we're in a very dangerous industry and we have to think globally and holistically as executives
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:44.000
Rather than just about myself and my team.
00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:45.000
Okay.
00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:54.000
So those are the two. And then vulnerability, like you can't work for me and not be vulnerable. I'm going to make you go there. And it's something that I really value. And I think it leads to deep, deep connection. And when we are connected to the people we work with.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:57:04.000
We want to be good teammates. We want to do more for our colleagues. And that's what makes a company great to work for. So vulnerability is another key one for me.
00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:07.000
I love that. And we'll keep it there.
00:57:07.000 --> 00:57:14.000
Carrie, thank you again for being here with us today. I encourage each and every one of you in our audience today
00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:20.000
to take Carrie's wisdom to heart and implement an ownership mindset in both your personal and professional lives.
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Together, we can foster these environments that promote resiliency and responsibility and accountability.
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:38.000
Also, don't forget, as I always say, if you are not a Cute for Women member, I don't know why you wouldn't at this point, but if you're not a Kiefer Women member, please, please, please join us at
00:57:38.000 --> 00:57:45.000
join K for W to connect with all the wonderful experts and other women in
00:57:45.000 --> 00:57:48.000
to empower you on your journey to success.
00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:54.000
We will send out the recording to everyone and the resources from today's webinar, along with our post-event survey.
00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:59.000
Please make sure you submit your feedback to help inform and influence our future Key for Women program.
00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:06.000
carry with the last minute, I will give you any parting advice or final words for our audience today.
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I mean, just that the ownership mindset is the most empowering mindset that you can have. Like you can transform your life when you own it. So I highly encourage you to look deep inside and how you can take responsibility for everything that happens in your life. And if you want more stuff like this, you can always find my book. I have it right back there. It's called The Ownership Mindset, a handbook for transforming your life and leadership. And you can get it on
00:58:31.000 --> 00:58:37.000
on Amazon or you can go to your local bookstore and have them order it for you.
00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:38.000
Thank you.
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I love it. Congratulations on publishing your first book. That is such an incredible feat.
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Thanks.
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Thank you to our audience for being with us today. And we look forward to connecting with you again in 2025.
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Take care. Thank you.
00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:49.000
Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye.
00:58:49.000 --> 00:58:53.000
Okay.
Watch Kerry Siggins, CEO and founder of StoneAge, talk about her journey of conquering personal and corporate challenges and impart actionable insights on how she cultivates resilience and embraces ownership thinking for effective leadership.
Key Takeaways
- Openly embrace your flaws and shortcomings to lead to deeper connections and greater success.
- Address imposter syndrome head-on, both within yourself and others.
- Implement an ownership mindset and become an example of responsibility.
Let's Work Together to Achieve Your Goals
For more Key4Women resources to help you reach your goals, visit key.com/women or email us to learn more.